ECHL: Reading Royals Make A Statement Win

It’s no secret that the Reading Royals are off to a plodding start this season. They are currently 5-10-1-1. Last night they took the series win against the Kalamazoo Wings.

Matt Brown scores his sixth goal of the season to start the first period. At 18:04 into the first, Joe Nardi and Darren Brady set Brown up, and the goal went past Kalamazoo’s netminder Jonathan Lemieux. This game was a single-game professional career high for Brown. He scored 1 goal and 2 assists.

Kalamazoo opened the floodgates at the beginning of the second period. At 5:12, Justin Taylor threw one past Royals netminder, Nolan Maier to put Kalamazoo on the board. Tanner Sorenson and Brandon Saigeon earned the assists for Taylor’s goal. A mere 23 seconds later, Kalamazoo took advantage of Reading in their zone and Collin Adams threw one past Maier on the high slot. Kalamazoo Forward Josh Passolt earned the lone assist on this goal for Adams. At 10:11 into the the second period, newly acquired Reading forward Tag Bertuzzi, got one in on Lemieux with the assists coming from Brown and Mike Chen. Chen is currently on a 3-point streak in 4 games. At 11:45, forward Devon Paliani scored one on Lemieux. Joe Nardi and Ryan Chyzowski earned the assists for Paliani’s goal. Paliani’s goal put Reading back in the lead. This was the first goal since November 8th, which was a multi-point game for Paliani, that he has tallied.

Coming into the third, Nardi potted a forehanded shot goal against Lemieux to give Reading the largest lead during this series. Brown and Bertuzzi centered the shot and earned the assists for Nardi’s goal. This goal gave Nardi a multi-point game as well, as previously mentioned, Brown. Nardi earned 1 goal and 2 assists during this game. Ty Glover brought the game within a goal for Kalamazoo with less than two minutes left in regulation. He was assisted by Brad Morrison and rookie Cooper Walker. The Royals did a great job at holding off Kalamazoo in a late attempt that could have evened the score. Tag Bertuzzi earned his second goal of the night when he threw the puck high and it hit the empty net directly on target.

With the final buzzer going off, there was an all-out melee on the ice between the teams.

Penalties assessed from this fight:

Reading:

Brendan Hoffman– Misconduct: Continuing the Altercation

Devon Paliani– Fighting: Major

Devon Paliani– Game Misconduct: Fighting other than during periods of the game

Kalamazoo:

Brad Morrison– Misconduct: Continuing the Altercation

Cooper Walker– Fighting: Major

Cooper Walker– Game Misconduct: Fighting other than during periods of the game

Important Notes for Reading:

• Head Coach James Henry shook the lines up and it helped during this game to get different chemistry going between different players.

“A majority of the offense came from one line. I felt like we got strong contributions, regardless of those guys being on the score sheet. I think we kind of leaned on more of the depth players that didnt get alot of ice time on Thursday.”

– Head Coach James Henry

• Newly Acquired Tag Bertuzzi has played 2 games with Reading and has tallied 4 goals in uniform already. He joins Ryan Chyzowski in leading the team with multi-goal games this season.

Needless to say, this was a statement game from Reading. Reading has 3 games on deck this coming week. They play Adirondack Thunder on Wednesday night. They come back home for a 2 game homestand against the Trois-Rivères Lions on Friday and Saturday.